But Caragonne's most seminal work, even in his own mind, was Plaza Guadalupe, an urban space on the West Side that was the site of Pope John Paul II's visit 25 years ago and this weekend's Mexican Independence Day festivities.

Caragonne's career was highly influenced by his education at the University of Texas' School of Architecture, where he graduated in 1960. He was there during a renaissance period led by a young, ground-breaking faculty that developed new approaches not only to architecture but its teaching.

A lot of the nation's future deans and professors of architecture came through UT, said Andrew Perez, who went to school with Caragonne. “The impact of UT-Austin was tremendous. It changed the way people taught, the way architecture was conveyed to students, and today a lot of what you see in architecture education is a direct outgrowth of that. This is what Alex wrote about, so he had a tremendous impact nationally.”

Caragonne's book “The Texas Rangers: Notes from an Architectural Underground” documented it, and his mentor Colin Rowe was among them. Caragonne edited Rowe's collected works in three volumes titled, “As I Was Saying.”